Thursday, 14 March 2013

Black Country Legend....

'Alfie', oil on canvas, 120 x 180cms, 2007

I received a phone call last
night from Stuart, his son, that Alfie Smith, Black Country poet and comedian
had sadly passed way last night aged 72 after quite a long period of illness.
Alfie was also a subject for one of my portrait paintings in 2006, when I was working
in Sandwell with a research grant with the intention of trying to open up my portrait work. In fact, Alfie was the first subject to pose
for me in his home in West Bromwich, which backed onto my old junior school.
Only when I started chatting with him did I realise that I also been to school
with Stu, who I met once again at Alfie’s seventieth birthday party which
readers of this blog may remember me posting nearly two years ago to the day.

Alfie was a very funny man, and
very generous with the tea and biscuits on the very rainy morning I visited him
to draw. He was very proud of his Black Country roots and his poetry, spoken in
his rich and thick local accent reflected this, his performances attracting quite a following.I’m very grateful for the time I spent with
him, in which I made two good drawings, that
helped give me the confidence to pursue what would eventually develop into a
major portrait painting commission that would last over two years, depicting the
residents of Sandwell. My painting of ‘Alfie’,
a very large portrait, was the first painting that I made from the extensive
drawings I made in the community. I’m never sure to this day whether he liked it or not, but he
affirmed that he did. He gave a brilliant speech at the opening to my
exhibition of all this work in 2008 at West Bromwich Town Hall- it had a real
edge that drew everyone in. The painting is now permanently on display at the
Council House in Sandwell, where he used to work, which seems fitting. He will
be really missed.